Sunday, October 1, 2017

Jon Huer writes


THE SEDUCTION OF JOB: Twenty Years Later   


A Dramatic Poem



CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Confronted by his wife Zorah, Job confesses.


ZORAH: 
O Job, my husband and the father of our children, 
You are not the man I knew not too long ago. 
Your silent sighs and dark countenance ever increasing, 
Your sleepless nights and restless days now countless, 
Your agonies and torments with the unseen evil 
Have not ceased and would not end upon my plea.   


You are a changed man, both old and new: 
The Job of old has become more of old Job, 
Thoughtful, loving and sweetly repentant, 
Immersed in prayer and silence, speaking only to God. 
But you have also turned into a new man, 
Desolate and fearful, agonizing and uncertain, 
Shut off from humanity and your loved ones, 
Silently brooding and wresting with the demon within.   


Sadness and melancholy are now your shadows, 
Following you wherever you cast your presence, 
And covering the ground with gloom and sorrow. 
Our household, once happy and content, is a graveyard 
Where laughter and mirth are no more heard, 
Because its master no longer laughs or jests, 
Where hush is its music, and silence its feast 
For fear of offending the master in his grieving.   


Insufferable as I am with your solitary torment, 
I can no longer endure it without cause. 
Upon God and His angels and beyond, 
Tell me, as you must, the source of this darkness‑‑ 
Which overshadows all that your soul touches. 
Also upon our lives together in happiness and suffering, 
Am I not part of my own husband's truth?  


JOB: 
O Zorah, my love, who is wholly unburdened 
By guilt or shame, crime or sin, man or God, 
Who gives all unasked, and loves all unreturned, 
Whose wisdom goes unheralded, whose piety unsung, 
And who comforts the afflicted with her heart and soul. 
O Zorah, can you bear the cruelty of truth?  


ZORAH: 
If I could not bear it, why should I ask? 
If my husband lived with it, would I not share?  

JOB: 
I stand between dishonor and poverty. 
The king has given me the choice 
For my wrongdoing in violation of the law 
Established to protect maids and servants. 
Now that you must know:  Bashana was my sin.  


ZORAH: 
O my Job, the man of piety and righteousness! 
Betraying his wife and the holy vow gravely taken, 
And in the sight of God and His angels! 
Why, my Job, who was blessed by the Lord, 
Who was the envy of all who knew or saw him? 
In God's name and all that is sacred, why?  


JOB: 
Zorah, my wife, I am naked and defenseless. 
My sin took away my shield so I cannot hide; 
My stupidity muddled my reason so I cannot explain; 
My impiety tied my tongue so heaven cannot hear me. 
I stand before your anger, trembling and helpless, 
But with enough of God's grace to say, "Forgive me."  


ZORAH: 
O Job, you fickle man, what have you lacked? 
Was I not always loyal to you, 
Standing by you in your trial with God? 
Did I ever lay my eyes on another man, 
Giving you reason for betrayal and treachery?  


JOB: 
Guilty as charged, I have ruined it all; 
Shame beyond words, I only wish to die‑‑ 
O how many times have I wished for it!  


ZORAH: 
Death is too easy for your sin, my Job. 
You broke my heart and trampled on my soul. 
My spirit is torn apart that cannot be repaired; 
I will cry eternally for my tattered life. 
What would they say about me at the marketplace; 
How shall I overcome the terror of the women's scorn?  


JOB: 
O Zorah, by the mercy of God is my love restored, 
In my heart that was blind to all but myself. 
Now all that heaven allows is in my soul, 
So that I can see God's grace in love. 
Upon Him I pledged my eternal love for you 
And I have not once strayed from it. 
I pray to God for His forgiveness and mercy 
And I appeal to you for yours, my love.  


ZORAH: 
O Job, a man for whom I praised the heavens, 
The sweetness of whose heart I admired, 
The depth of whose wisdom kept me enthralled, 
Who walked before God like no man alive‑‑ 
O how many stitches in the hands of angels 
Would it take to mend my heart in shreds; 
How much balm from heaven's own garden 
To wipe away all my tears of betrayal; 
And how many bright stars in the skies 
To show my trail back to trust and love again? 
Yes, Job, my love, I will bear the burden 
As you do yours in silence and prayer. 
I shall rejoice in the solemn sadness of penance. 
Would God ever be cruel like man, 
And not hear my desolate prayers? 


ZORAH TO SELF: 
O men, the strangest creatures on earth! 
So rigidly, so faithfully they adhere to God, 
Yet, without second thoughts do they betray their women!
In greatness they speak of the world and its order, 
Yet, in their heart is the fickleness of a scoundrel! 
Bravely they march to do battle for God, 
And endure hardships as saints and martyrs. 
But in their private deeds with women, 
Their endurance is as short as the winter's day, 
Their adherence as capricious as the swine's homecoming!   


O men, so incomprehensible, so contradictory! 
As God's soldiers and the king's men 
They may die rather than betray their cause; 
As husbands and loved ones to their women, 
Their commitment is as solid as the summer's fog 
And as reliable as the promise of an east wind.   


O Job, my man, so extreme and so onerous! 
You sinned like a feather flying in the breeze, 
Yet, like a fallen angel do you repent in weeping. 
If you sinned like a mortal man 
Why should you repent like God's prophet? 
What is the weight of your sin 
That you must lift the whole heavens to repent?   


O men, could you be reasonable like women?
 

Job and his Family -- William Blake

Job and his Daughters -- William Blake

1 comment:

  1. During Job’s first set of tribulations his seven sons and three daughters, all unnamed, were killed, but they were all replaced. His sons remained unnamed, but his second set of daughters were called Yemimah (“day” or “dove”), Keziah (cassia, “cinnamon”), and Keren-happukh ("horn of kohl," i.e., make-up container). His daughters were said to be the most beautiful women in the land and were given an inheritance, as were his sons: according to the “Testament of Job” these were “three-stringed girdles about the appearance of which no man can speak. For they were not earthly work, but celestial sparks of light flashed through them like the rays of the sun. And he gave one string to each of His daughters and said: ‘Put these as girdles around you in order that all the days of your life they may encircle you and endow you with every thing good…. When the Lord had deemed me worthy to have compassion on me and to take off my body the plagues and the worms, He called me and handed to me these three strings. And He said to me: “Rise and gird up thy loins like a man I will demand of thee and declare thou unto me.” And I took them and girt them around my loins, and immediately did the worms leave my body, and likewise did the plagues, and my whole body took new strength through the Lord, and thus I passed on, as though I had never suffered. But also in my heart I forgot the pains. Then spoke the Lord unto me in His great power and showed to me all that was and will be. Now then, my children, in keeping these, you will not have the enemy plotting against you nor [evil] intentions in your mind because this is a charm from the Lord. Rise then and gird these around you before I die in order that you may see the angels come at my parting so that you may behold with wonder the powers of God.’" When Yemimah girt herself, “immediately she departed her body, as her father had said, and she put on another heart, as if she never cared for earthly things. And she sang angelic hymns in the voice of angels, and she chanted forth the angelic praise of God while dancing.” When Keziah put on her girdle “her heart was transformed, so that she no longer wished for worldly things. And her mouth assumed the dialect of the heavenly rulers and she sang the donology of the work of the High Place and if any one wishes to know the work of the heavens he may take an insight into the hymns of Kassia.” As for Keren-happukh, “her mouth spoke in the language of those on high; for her heart was transformed, being lifted above the worldly things. She spoke in the dialect of the Cherubim, singing the praise of the Ruler of the cosmic powers and extolling their glory.” Job may also have provided lands to them: Yemimah may have been the same woman as Zarqa’ al-Yamama, a blue-eyed woman with exceptional intuition, keen sight, and ability to see events a week before they happened, according to Arab tradition; her enemies tried to evade her gaze by hiding behind trees they carried, but when she informed her people they ignored her warning, allowing her foes to take them by surprise, kill every man, gouge out her eyes, and crucify her; the district of Al-Yamama in central Arabia was named after her, the region’s first queen. Keziah was the name of the ancient Khuzistan, north of the Persian Gulf; Keren-happukh may have been the source of Kornah, at the junction of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

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